


i know i've played the fool (but i was playing it for you)

by lovethyworld



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Character Study, Emotional, F/M, Freeform, M/M, Post-Canon, but hey! matthias is alive at least, just to reiterate there is no happy ending here, so don't read if you want a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:08:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27625186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovethyworld/pseuds/lovethyworld
Summary: The boat bobs in the harbor, small and swift. Kaz watches the tides push it up and down with calm, even motions, and for a moment, he wants to take it all back. Perhaps he does not want to lose the girl standing next to him. Perhaps he wants her to stay.But when Inej cups her hand to his cheek and says something witty that he can't pay attention to, he lets her go anyway. He lets the wind and the sea carry her away, and he tells her goodbye.(What he doesn't tell her is how he watches her climb to the top of the rigging as The Wraith sails into the blue for the very first time, and how, even as a dot on the horizon, she takes his breath away.What he doesn't tell her is that he imagines her sitting in the crow's nest, sharpening her knives like panther claws, the sun catching her oil-dark hair. The vision is so bright he almost shields his eyes.He never tells her that.)
Relationships: Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa, Minor Jesper Fahey/Wylan Van Eck - Relationship, Minor Nina Zenik/Matthias Helvar - Relationship
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	i know i've played the fool (but i was playing it for you)

**Author's Note:**

> my brain at 2:00 am: what if i tried to write a super emotional fic with zero (0) lines of dialogue- jk haha-
> 
> my brain at 2:01 am: unless...
> 
> (title is a slightly edited lyric from "behind the light" by joshua hyslop)
> 
> TW: vague descriptions of sexual assault in the paragraph beginning with "then out of the corner of his eye..."

The world turns upside down on a Tuesday. Seven am on a Tuesday, to be precise. The hour when Ketterdam just begins to wake, when the birds begin to sing and people begin their days of (dis)honest work. The Tuesday when Dirtyhands meets his heart at the edge of the city and says goodbye. The sun is rising, the day is beginning, and yet Kaz Brekker feels like it is nothing but an ending.

For only the third time, their hands are intertwined, yet Kaz follows Inej's gaze out into the ocean. He's not blind; he sees the way she eyes her ship, as if it's the only way out of her own personal hell. The way she leans forward like a bird taking flight, crouches and moves like a panther about to pounce. She wants to leave this place. He feels her pulse thump in her palm.

The boat bobs in the harbor, small and swift. Kaz watches the tides push it up and down with calm, even motions, and for a moment, he wants to take it all back. Perhaps he does not want to lose the girl standing next to him. Perhaps he wants her to stay.

But when Inej cups her hand to his cheek and says something witty that he can't pay attention to, he lets her go anyway. He lets the wind and the sea carry her away, and he tells her goodbye.

(What he doesn't tell her is how he watches her climb to the top of the rigging as The Wraith sails into the blue for the very first time, and how, even as a dot on the horizon, she takes his breath away.

What he doesn't tell her is that he imagines her sitting in the crow's nest, sharpening her knives like panther claws, the sun catching her oil-dark hair. The vision is so bright he almost shields his eyes.

He never tells her that.)

* * *

Kaz stands at the water's edge for a while, not quite able to bring himself to move. He has never been a sentimental person, but there aren't any words to describe it besides feeling like a piece of his heart has left him.

* * *

Stalking through Ketterdam, Kaz's eyes are darker than ever. The people on the streets whisper that Dirtyhands has become crueler than he was before his Wraith left the city. Instead of giving them an answer, he lets them decide.

During the day, he runs a gang, living off the streets, crushing the other disorganized crowds beneath the cane he never lets go of. During the nights, he pores over letters delivered months ago and yet still smell like sea spray. Inej's writing slants across them, telling him of the girls she saves, the crews she liberates. In the candlelight, Kaz almost smiles at them, but true joy is still a ghost that only flickers across his face.

He writes back to her with hopeful abandon, putting the things he never wants to say on paper. The words that get stuck in his mouth flow easily through the pen, emerging as dark phrases and sentences, the worst parts of him. When he finishes, he holds the letter up to the candles in his office and notices how the light shines through the paper anyway, as if even his most sinful confessions can be overcome.

* * *

Kaz stretches out his aching leg and looks out the window, remembering the girl that used to sit there, how she tipped her head back and let the sunrise wash her in cleansing rose-gold. He doesn't know how it's possible to miss someone this much. No matter which direction he steers his mind in, it races back to Inej, Inej, Inej. His thoughts are a compass and she is his North Star. Even though he doesn't know where his home is anymore.

Papers are scattered all over his desk, and his gaze sweeps over them - calm, calculating, the tremulous hint of worry buried well. Mentally, he runs through the numbers again: The Wraith should be near Fjerda by now, about a week away by mail. Weather, bad postal service, and other infuriating barriers can delay a letter by up to around ten days.

It's been twenty-four days since Inej's last letter.

The door creaks. Jesper steps in. Kaz looks at the lanky sharpshooter for a minute, watching the energy fade slowly from his quartz gray eyes.

Wordlessly, Kaz hands Jesper the letters. He'd spilled his worry to him during a night when he'd drank too much and held back too little. Jesper had insisted on coming over to take a look at the letters and their dates, promising that Kaz's nervousness about her was unfounded. Dirtyhands would have fought back, but Kaz had swallowed his pride. For Inej. Uncharacteristic, sure, but there's a feeling of anxiety vibrating through him constantly now, and it's only been amplified over the last few weeks of radio silence. As stupid as it sounds, Kaz can't shake the feeling that something bad has happened. That the universe has finally struck back.

Jesper leafs through the papers, his expression betraying nothing. He's smart enough to figure out Kaz's feelings on the subject, but reckless enough to try and confront him anyway.

Well-meaning advice tumbles from his mouth, advice that sounds like simple sugarcoating over Inej being- no he can't think that, advice that Kaz can't stand. He hates feeling weak like this, like he could expose his whole self to someone and have them reject him anyway. It grates like nails on chalkboard against his ears and before he knows it he's thrown his weight onto his bad leg and shouted at Jesper to leave.

There's a twinge of regret within Kaz as Jesper slips out the door, his posture somewhat slumped, but he tries to ignore it. He leans down and busies himself with work once more.

* * *

The first time he hears it is from a member of the Dime Lions. The boy's tattoo ripples on his bicep as he squirms underneath Dirtyhands' grip, trying to free himself from this demon's grasp. But Kaz holds firm, intent on subjugating this so-called Lion who has defied the Dregs too many times.

Kaz's threats are cold, hard, as shuttered as a derelict old house. But the boy's words cut straight to his bone.

He spits next to Kaz's cane and tells him that the Wraith is dead.

* * *

The next day, the stadwatch finds a body at the edge of the Dregs' territory, a boy with his skull fractured irreversibly by the silent swing of a cane.

* * *

He doesn't believe it, he tells himself. He sits alone in his office, in his chair, at his desk, floating drifting falling away. He doesn't believe it. He doesn't believe it.

The door closes behind Jesper for the second time in as many days. Kaz watches him go, the Zemeni's words still echoing in his mind. _She's gone,_ Jesper had said, his eyes red-rimmed in a rare show of sadness. _We have to face it. Inej-_ he choked on the word- _she's not coming back._

She couldn't be. Inej, with her silent footsteps and her unwavering faith. The gods she had believed so wholeheartedly in could not be so cruel.

Kaz's mind continues treading through its minefield. He'd cared for her. He'd... he'd loved her. He'd let his walls come crashing down for the dark-skinned girl he hadn't heard from in weeks. He shies away from the truth, from the words he can't even consider. The words he won't consider.

All he can think is _She has to. She has to come back._

* * *

Dirtyhands scours the city for news, taking in rival gang members, threatening the postmaster. He hears nothing. _She has to come back she has to she has to she has to._

* * *

Days later, he waits at the pier, watching the sun rise like they did with their hands intertwined so long ago.

_She's not coming back._

* * *

The candles of the Van Eck mansion glow cheerfully in the evening as Wylan's fingers spring across the piano. He moves with flowing, graceful beats, weaving a world of music with nothing but his hands. Jesper sits on the edge of the bench with him, watching his boyfriend do the thing he loves the most. (Well, the thing he loves the _second_ most.)

Jesper leans in and kisses Wylan on the forehead, watching the musician's cheeks flush red and a smile appearing on his face. The music shifts to a faster tempo with a driven rhythm, reminiscent of Suli folk songs, irresistibly catchy. So it's no surprise when Jesper gets up and twirls to the music, caught up in a dance of dynamics and footwork. His feet trace across the polished floorboards and his hands-

No one is holding them.

His steps falter. He used to dance right here, this very routine, this very song. But Inej had danced with him. Her hands in his, the warmth of a friend pressing up against his chest, their height difference nearly comical but not quite. They'd laughed and spun to Wylan's song, loving life, finding moments of sanctuary in a crooked town.

Jesper stumbles over to the piano bench and sits down heavily, all rhythm gone. His eyes are pulled to the empty space where a Suli girl once stood, joy etched into the lines of her dark skin. She is gone.

Wylan senses it too. He lifts his lovely hands off the piano and tugs Jesper into a hug. Sudden sobs are making it hard for Jesper to breathe, and he can barely sit up straight under the weight of knowing that one of his best friends is gone dead never to be seen again.

The house is quiet that night.

* * *

After the news of the Wraith's death (not Inej, just "the Wraith") has swept through the city, Ketterdam seems to move more freely. Less justice-seeking pirates sailing the high seas means more illegal goods making it through trading, more coins in pockets, more wealth for the black market.

Kaz knows everything now. Even sitting alone in his office with his head in his hands, trying to fight back the rising waves, whispers swirl through his window and reach his ears. Most of them rumors, but a few of them true.

1) The Wraith, both the ship and the person, went down near Fjerda.

2) She was killed by a band of looters in a battle that painted the water red.

3) Nobody survived the fight.

* * *

_Kaz,_

_We heard about Inej's passing, and we are grieving too. If you want to talk, Matthias and I are here._

_Nina_

* * *

The thing that hurts most, Kaz thinks one night in a drunken haze, is the indignity of it all. Not the fact that he's alone now, alone again, will be alone forever. Dirtyhands can live with that. (He hadn't deserved her anyway.) No, it's the simple fact that Inej should have died quietly, peacefully, happily.

She should have lived to be eighty-seven and perched on the roof every day, out in the country, feeding the crows. Kaz's mind can't help but inject himself into the fantasy, and he sits beside her in his rose-tinted daydreams, where he holds her hand without either of them flinching away and his face is lined with smiles and nothing else. He should have bought her a home on the mainland in some faraway meadow, where the smoke of Ketterdam could never reach her. Where she could sit in green, green fields every day and let fireflies alight on her outstretched hand.

She should have lived somewhere else. She should have lived to be older.

She should have lived.

Freezing waves, ice puncturing the water, Kaz can picture it all too clearly. Inej had sunk into the subzero Fjerdan sea far away from everything she'd loved, crimson bleeding into blue, warmth stolen away by penetrating coldness. Her life snuffed out like a candle flame in the kind of bloody battle she never should have experienced. She'd wanted nothing but justice, and the universe had rewarded her with this instead. _How dare it?_ How dare fate chase down the only person worth living for?

Kaz's chest heaves with shallow breaths, and he is gripped with the worst panic attack he's had in years. It takes days for it to completely subside.

* * *

_Bang,_ goes Anika's gun, _boom_ , goes Specht's grenade, yet Kaz's thoughts are louder than anything in the brawl around him. This raid on the Razorgulls is exactly like the battle Inej died in. Bloody, chaotic, filled with bodies everywhere you looked, yet so achingly lonely.

Despite his bad leg, Dirtyhands dominates the scene, his cane making contact with flesh more than once in a while. He's a fighter, always has been, and this skirmish has been brewing for a long time. The Razorgulls are getting what they deserve.

Then out of the corner of his eye, he catches sight of someone. A man, tall and burly, his towheaded hair bouncing almost cheerfully as he rains blows down on Dirix. A memory scratches at the back of Kaz's brain. He's seen this man before. On the main street of Ketterdam, chasing down a young girl, his hands reaching for places on her body they had no right to be.

Fury sweeps through Kaz, and it isn't him, but Dirtyhands running toward the man. Dirtyhands hitting this vile person, letting his screams fall upon deaf ears.

(But Kaz Rietveld can't help but remember the face Inej wore when talking about the Menagerie, painfully closed-off with tears threatening to spill over, and he wants to hunt down the people who made her feel that way and make them _hurt._ Hurt as much as she did.)

His anger is an ocean, straining at its shores, needing to break free so badly it hurt. So Dirtyhands lets it. He lets the man's breathing fade, and then he lets the whole building burn down too.

* * *

It is only in the night that Kaz lets himself hurt. He curls up in his bed and pulls the blankets up and tries not to think about the missing warmth that used to lay next to him. The girl who's gone now, the only person who held his hand in years. He misses her, misses her so bad it feels like his heart is being torn out.

He doesn't know if he can do this anymore.

Kaz tries to lose himself in a bottle, forget himself in alcohol, but he discovers quickly that it only makes everything worse. He sees Inej everywhere when he's drunk. In the shadows of his room. Under the streetlamps. Perched just outside his window, throwing ghost seeds to ghost crows.

Because this is how Ketterdam works. No one survived the battle that took Inej. No one survives this city. It drowns people and drags their dreams through the mud, destroying their hope, their faith, everything they believe in. Ketterdam changes people. (It changed Kaz. A boy fell into the water. A monster climbed back out.)

Perhaps the citizens of this damned city are still breathing, walking the streets, but they've forgotten how to live beyond the smoke and the ash and the smog. They live for money. They kill themselves for kruge. People come into this city, and they don't come back out. Ketterdam brings out the darkest parts of them until it's all they can see.

Grief roars inside him, louder and louder, until he can barely stand it. Every time he closes his eyes, he sees that smile, hears that golden laugh. He looks to the window and his eyes trace the silhouette of a girl who breathed but never truly lived.

It hurts. Everything hurts. Something has to give.

* * *

Wylan steps into Kaz's office for the first time months after Inej's last. His expression is similar - eyes crinkled in concern, mouth pulled tight, words held back - but he is far from the girl that Kaz let himself love.

Nevertheless, when Wylan sits down and knits his fingers together, Kaz does not protest. It is only when Wylan asks him, the most feared gang leader in Ketterdam, how he is doing, that Kaz feels himself fall apart.

Wylan talks for a long time, and Kaz does nothing but sit in silence. He stares at his desk as the merchling recounts stories of Jesper, Nina and Matthias. Inej. Through Wylan's words, Kaz can see her clambering on the rigging of their ship to their famed heist, standing in the crow's nest and searching for some distant hint of shore. He remembers it all.

And for the first time, it doesn't sting to do so.

They stay there for hours, Wylan weaving stories through words, Kaz listening. And if a tear escapes his bitter brown eyes, Wylan says nothing about it, and Kaz doesn't try to hold it back from happening again.

(He will look back on it later and wonder if this is healing, to let yourself fall apart and have others put you back together. It is something he hasn't felt in a long time.)

* * *

_Dear Inej,_

_It's immensely harder to write a letter to you than about you. And trust me, I've done much of the latter. Nina insists on new mail from me every week, and I suppose there's no harm in doing so. She's a wanderer now, with Matthias, trying to help anyone they find. It reminds of you, to be honest._

_Speaking of being honest, I've drafted and redrafted this far too many times. There are so many things that I never got to say to you, things that I never got to be vulnerable about. And for that, I'm sorry. Jesper and Wylan are helping me shed my armor without me ever having to be weak. I think you would have liked that a lot. I still see your smile whenever I think of you._

_Someday I'll find the balance between remembering you and moving on. The world continues to spin, no matter how many times I try to change that. Sometimes I look out the window and expect to see you there, silhouetted against the sunrise, painted in pink and blue and gold. You looked like a saint, you know. You didn't deserve what you got._

_But I never find you there. I suppose we're both too far gone for that._

_Your friends are trying to help me change. Perhaps they're my friends now too. You're a scar that might never heal over, but that doesn't mean I can't try._

_Last night I swore to be as faithful as you, and it's an oath I hope I'll keep. The sun rises every morning. You loved the idea of that. Reality isn't as perfect, and this damn city is as crooked as it's always been, but I'll try my best to change it. For you._

_Everything for you._

_Love, Kaz_

**Author's Note:**

> who's editing, haven't heard of her
> 
> this was really meant to be a challenge for myself to see how well i express emotion in my writing, so feedback would really be appreciated :D and i don't want to be annoying but kudos/comments are like my greatest sense of motivation
> 
> i did end up bending the "0 dialogue" rule a little bit though uhhh please forgive me


End file.
